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Robert Nozick
Historical figureUnited States1938-2002

Robert Nozick

Philosopher · Professor at Harvard University

A Harvard philosopher whose book Anarchy, State, and Utopia defended a minimal state limited to protecting rights and challenged theories that call for redistribution.

Compare yourself See the 12 scores
Profile on 12 axes9 of 12 documented
ECONOMYSTATESOCIETYWORLDOwnershipMarketsWelfareAuthoritySecurityStructureMoralityReligionTechnologyCultureTradeForeign
Where they stood

Robert Nozick, axis by axis

  1. 01Ownership+85
    PublicPrivate
  2. 02Markets+90
    PlannedFree
  3. 03Welfare+90
    SharedSelf-reliant

    The score comes from Anarchy, State, and Utopia. His later books seemed to soften some views, though he said stories of his apostasy were overstated.

  4. 04Authority-50
    DemocraticStrong leader
  5. 05Security-50
    LibertyOrder
  6. 06Structure-50
    LocalCentral

    In his utopia, many voluntary communities sit within a minimal state, a design that favors local variety.

  7. 07Morality-40
    ProgressiveTraditional
  8. 08Religion-30
    SecularReligious
  9. 09TechnologyNo clear record
    EmbraceCaution

    He left no policy view on regulating technology, so it is empty.

  10. 10CultureNo clear record
    MulticulturalNational identity

    He left no recorded view of immigration or national identity, so it is empty.

  11. 11Trade-60
    GlobalProtected

    It is drawn from his broad defense of voluntary exchange, not from any writing on specific trade policy.

  12. 12Foreign policyNo clear record
    CooperationStrength

    Apart from the state's duty to protect, he wrote little about foreign affairs, so it is empty.

3 axes have no clear record, so matching leaves them out.

Who was Robert Nozick?

Robert Nozick came from Brooklyn, where he was born in 1938. After Columbia and Princeton he took a lasting post at Harvard in 1969. In 1974 he published Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which won the National Book Award and became the best-known scholarly case for libertarianism. Part of its purpose was to answer his Harvard colleague John Rawls. After that he moved to other topics in philosophy, with Philosophical Explanations in 1981, The Examined Life in 1989, The Nature of Rationality in 1993 and Invariances in 2001. Stomach cancer killed him in 2002.

Political views

  • His claim was that only a minimal state can be justified, with the sole task of guarding rights to life, liberty, property and contract.Source: plato.stanford.edu
  • In his view the state has no right to redistribute income, to make people moral or to shield them from harming themselves.Source: plato.stanford.edu
  • He compared taxing earnings to forced labor.Source: plato.stanford.edu
  • His entitlement theory says holdings are just when they were acquired and passed on justly, whatever the overall pattern of distribution looks like.Source: plato.stanford.edu
  • He said a minimal state could emerge from protective associations through an invisible hand process, and nobody's rights need be violated on the way.Source: plato.stanford.edu
  • He saw the minimal state as the frame for a utopia, where people could set up many different voluntary communities.Source: iep.utm.edu
  • He held that the minimal state does not tax to fund its services, although a dominant protective agency may bar its clients from using rival agencies.Source: plato.stanford.edu

Legacy

The book forced mainstream philosophers to treat libertarian ideas seriously, and classes on justice still set it against Rawls. Admirers like its reasoning on rights and on how far a state may go. Critics doubt that his account of just acquisition can defend the property people actually own. Anarchists doubt that a minimal state would be stable or legitimate. Some readers took his later books as a retreat from libertarianism, but in 2001 he said he still stood within its broad framework.

In their own words

“Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights).”
Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974

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Robert Nozick: questions

What is Nozick's entitlement theory?

The theory says a distribution is just when every holding was fairly acquired and then freely traded or given. The overall pattern does not count, so on this view redistribution has no justification.

Was Robert Nozick a libertarian?

Yes, at least in his first book. Later readers saw him drifting from it, but in 2001 he said he remained within its broad framework.

What did Nozick think of taxes?

He likened taxing earnings to forced labor. That is why he rejected redistribution and wanted the state to do no more than protect rights.

Sources